First Tender of Marange Diamonds in Antwerp Raises $11M

(IDEX Online News) – The first-ever tender of diamonds from the Marange area of Zimbabwe held in Antwerp earlier this week achieved sales of $10.7 million, which the organizers said was in line with expectations in view of the composition of the parcels.

The tender generated $1.6 million for the Zimbabwean treasury, which is the designated 15 percent royalty fee.

Most of the parcels offered did not reflect a complete run-of-mine, but assortments that closely reflected the production footprint or run-of-mine fetched prices that were "significantly higher than average sales in Zimbabwe, going up 50 percent compared to average sales in Zimbabwe, demonstrating the high potential of selling goods on Antwerp's open market," according to a report on the tender by Professor Francis Gudyanga, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development.

"Above all, the trial tender has provided a valuable insight and has resulted in tangible guidelines that will allow the government of Zimbabwe to fully optimize a second, larger tender of Marange goods in the near future. The next sale is scheduled for February 12-19," Gudyanga said.

"Overall, the response to the tender was overwhelmingly positive; 115 clients attended the tender, a large number of those clients were well acquainted with the Marange goods and certain clients even visited more than once over the course of the tender. Compared to an average of 10-15 companies that are present at regular tenders in Zimbabwe, it is clear this trial tender was very well received in Antwerp."

The tender included rough diamonds from five different diamond-producing companies: Marange Resources, Diamond Mining Company (DMC), Anjin Investments, Jinan and Kusena Diamonds, and totaled 279,723 carats.

It was the first tender held in Antwerp since the European Union lifted sanctions against the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC), following high-level meetings between Zimbabwean officials and the Antwerp World Diamond Centre.

"The aim of this first trial tender of Marange goods was to enable the Zimbabwean government and industry stakeholders to make a thorough assessment of the benefits of selling rough diamonds on the open Antwerp market through a trial tender, alongside the regular tenders that are organized in Zimbabwe," Gudyanga wrote.

"The majority of the parcels offered, did not reflect a complete run-of-mine of each individual mining operation. Overall, 89 percent of the goods were low-quality industrial goods. In general, goods weren't optimally cleaned, sorted and parcels were not ideally composed."

Gudyanga said that although diamond tender results were usually confidential, the sales figures were announced following recent statements by Zimbabwe's Minister of Mines and Mining Development, Walter Chidakwa calling for full transparency relating to Zimbabwe's mining revenues and rough sales processes which made it "paramount to disclose as much information as possible on the results of this trial tender".